According to golf-fitness experts Gray Cook and Mike Boyle, the body has an alternating pattern of mobile joints connected by a series of stable segments. If the pattern is altered, it will result in dysfunction, loss of efficiency, and compensation, as well as increasing the risk of injury.

They also say that when one of the mobile segments become stiff or limited in their range of motion it will result in movement of the stable segment which could lead to injury.

One of the mobile segments of this model is the ankles.  The ankles are designed to move in many different directions including forward bending, rotation, and lateral motion. These different motions help the golf swing by maintaining posture and balance, shifting weight and stabilizing the body at high rotational speeds.

Your ankles (feet) are the base of your golf swing.  They support and absorb a lot of weight as they interact with the ground to help you transfer your weight and help you maintain your balance as you push off the ground to create speed and power. If your ankles are tight, limited in range of motion or weak, your body will make compensations usually recruiting segments of the body that should be stable leading to swing compensations, inefficient movement and even injury.

Have you ever considered that your ankles may be holding you back from creating power? Becoming more aware of your physical limitations can help you understand why certain things happen in your swing and how you can make adjustments to swing your best.

For example, if you have limited amount of range of motion in your ankles, it is likely that you will not able to maintain your spine angle throughout your downswing.  The natural tendency is to thrust your hips toward the ball at the start of the downswing, thus pulling yourself up and out of the shot causing an array of errant shots and loss of power.

Test Your Ankle Mobility

The Cardiogolf Slope

You almost never have a flat lie on the golf course, so it is important to practice your swing on sloping lies to develop feel and stability. The CardioGolf  ‘Slope’ is curved like a fairway slope. You can vary the angle you place your foot to practice varies sloping lies.

The CardioGolf Slope is curved and works similar to a balance ball or BOSU ball also known as a Swiss ball, fit ball or stability ball. The Slope works similar to these training aids, but with the Slope, there is no need to have all the different balls. The Slope will help you work on your core body muscles-the abdominals and back muscles.  A primary benefit of exercising on the curved Sloped as opposed to exercising directly on a hard flat surface is that the body responds to the instability of the Slope to remain balanced, engaging many more muscles to do so.

Get Your Own CardioGolf Slope